Decode
by xostretchox
Summary: It's simple: Fang wants to be with Max. Max can't decide what she wants. But is it her own fear of getting hurt, or something much darker? …Fax
1. Chapter 1

PROLOGUE

Water. That was the only thing on my mind. My throat ached as a White Coat increased the speed of the moving platform underneath my weak feet. _At least give me shoes,_ I think. My toes burn as they blister even more. My heart is pumping so hard that I swear it could easily jump right out of me. I get a little dizzy, but try to fight it. Who knows what kind of shots they'll give me when I'm unconscious.

"Not bad," a White Coat says. Under his breath he mumbles, "Maybe I'll finally get a damn raise." I spit at his feet. White Coats like this guy sicken me, treating us as if we're mere experiments.

"You'll pay for that!" he yells. But I barely hear him as he screams at me more. Dizziness is taking over but my eyes flicker to a table a few feet away from me, where a metal pipe sits used for only God knows what. As he bends down to wipe off his shoe, I rip out the needle connected to a tube that records my heart rate. I dart for the table and grab the pipe.

By the time he realizes what I'm doing, I throw the pipe as hard as I can at his face and I hear a very satisfying crunch. Blood instantly pours down his forehead, and I grab his keys and run out the door of Room 216. I round the familiar halls and just make it to the stairs right when a sharp part overcomes my back and I collapse. I turn around and there stands a white Coat with a belt in his hand. He whips me again. It's unusual punishment, but he does it one, two, three more times until I slowly feel consciousness slipping away. The last thing I hear is, "I swear to God, kid, do this one more time and you'll be dead so fast you won't even have time to hear your precious little girlfriend scream."

_Max_.

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><p><strong>AN- Don't worry, not all chapters will be this short. I have reasoning for this (: I have a plot all planned out and hopefully this will be a pretty long one!<strong>

**I says this one time only. I love reviews, especially concrit, it helps me improve my writing. Feel free to review when you like and enjoy the story (:**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN- Thanks everyone (: I appreciate the tips and compliments. And I am so sorry, to clear up any confusion this is set in Fang's POV. The whole story is. So here we go! This chapter's kind of short but I plan on updating frequently so that should make up for it. Most chapters will be longer than this anyways.**

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><p>My eyes dart open. Beads of sweat cover my whole body. My breath is ragged and I think how thankful I am to be waking up in Dr. M's house, not in a dog crate once again being the age of nine. It was only a nightmare. And a terrifying one at that. I know I should tell someone about my recurring dreamnightmare, but it wouldn't do any help to stop it. Plus the burden of bothering the Flock, especially Max, would make them worried for no reason.

Mornings like this are the ones that I have to force myself out of bed. Yep, you heard me right. Dr. M has given us all the luxury of having our own bed. I really owe a lot to her. If she didn't eagerly take us in, I can only imagine where we would be now. Of course, I know the real reason why she's letting us stay.

Max. Her daughter. If Max wasn't related to her. There's no way we'd be here this long. Then again, that's why I'm so grateful. Max. I always tell myself to stop thinking about her all the time, but I can't help it. She's just so… I don't know.

One thing I do know though, is that I'm madly in love with her. It took me a while tor realize it but I know I couldn't have run from it much longer. She's just so perfect. Like the way her cheeks get really red when she's pissed off, or when she smiles and her dimples show. And alright, she's hot, but I try not to confuse my teenage hormones with my actual feelings for her.

It kills me. Wanna know why? 'Cause I know she'll never love me back. The countless times she has referred to me as her brother as a cover proves that. Yeah, she kissed me on the beach when I was half-dead, but I know I've ruined any of the feelings she had for me when she found out about that girl when we went to real school. I was so stupid.

And it surprises me too, that she doesn't know that I have feelings for her. Maybe she does know and just doesn't want to address it. If I were her, I would surely notice the stares and the occasional compliment. On my blog, half of the girls rave about how we should get together, or how perfect we are for each other. And there's no doubt she's read my blog before. Curiosity has gotten the better of the whole Flock. One time, Nudge hacked it and made a whole post on why I was her favorite flock member. At first I was angry, but then I realized it could've been much worse.

Hiding my love for Max is not easy. In fact, it's nearly impossible, Angel being a mind reader and all. Surely the rest of the Flock knows I have some sort of feelings for her, but only Angel knows how much I really love her. She found out when she caught me thinking about Max. she sat me down and demanded I tell her what I felt for her, which was not my best day. I swore her to secrecy, but she has dropped plenty of hints to everyone. Even Dr. M.

I get out of my bed and go down to the kitchen, where the rest of the Flock is just sitting down to eat. I grabbed a plate of steamy eggs and sit down. The Flock is usually pretty quiet when we eat, especially breakfast. We're all still pretty tired from just getting up. Plus, who wants to ramble when you can eat food?

I scarf my food down and take a sip of OJ. I sit there for a few minutes waiting for our plans for the day. We've been taking a break from saving the world; we like to settle down for as long as we can, what with Max's Voice not having much to say lately.

Max finishes the rest of her food quickly and asks, "What do you guys wanna do today?"

"Go to the mall!" Nudge suggests.

Iggy groans. "Nudge, we went to the mall two days ago." Iggy doesn't mean to be negative, but he can't stand all of the noise and people there.

"Let's blow the house up!" Gazzy yells excitedly, but he only receives a glare from Max.

"I think we should go for a fly," Angel says. Max looks around and asks if everyone agrees. I nod for my approval as the rest of the Flock gives a positive response. After we change, we're on the roof and in the air in no time. We decide to fly to a lake about thirty miles away. It's a great day out, especially for flying. I look to my left and Max is flying gracefully. Her hair is being blown around in the wind and I can't help but stare at her.

_Fang, do you mind? You should stop before I lose all my innocence,_ Angel thinks to me.

I glare at her. I wasn't even thinking anything that wasn't innocent. Plus, how can you not think about the girl you're in love with? Angel giggles at that thought and I roll my eyes.

After about a half an hour of flying, we land by some trees and walk a few minutes and stop at the shore of a huge pond. We've been here before. A familiar waterfall is to my right, and it was surprising quiet and peaceful. We walked up a hill and onto the cliff next the waterfall.

"When are we gonna start saving the world again?" Gazzy asks.

Max sits down and rubs her temples. "Whenever we want I guess. The Voice hasn't giving any instructions lately so we should just rest up and have some fun while we can."

"Speaking of fun…" Angel trails off. She has a devious grin on her face and I know she's up to no good. I raise an eyebrow in question. She laughs and pushes me off the cliff. I barely have time to scream before my back hits the warm water. It actually hurt a little on my wings from the impact. The cliff was pretty high; it's about 30 feet up. The rest of the Flock is in hysterics at the top of the cliff.

"I wanna do that!" Nudge yells and takes a running start and jumps off. She squeals as her body hits the water.

"CANNON BALL!" Gazzy screams and jumps off the cliff. He makes a huge splash and I chuckle.

Angel is next, and yelps on the way down. She barely makes a splash.

"Yeehaw!" Iggy howls, and runs off.

Max laughs and jumps off. She yelps as her body hits the water. I'm treading as Max splashes me playfully. I smile and return it. Everyone starts splashing one another for a couple minutes. We play a few games that the Flock made up a while back. It's been forever since we've gone swimming. Going to the beach isn't exactly our scene. The wings are too difficult to hide. Max grins at me as rest of Flock is giggling and having fun. They never really had to time to, you know, just be kids. We play a few more games and just swim around for another half an hour.

That's when I heard a scream.

I whipped my head around to see Max go under water. Something is pulling her down, and she whips her arms and legs all around to fight whatever it is, but it pulled her down deeper. Soon enough she goes limp. Angel starts crying not knowing what to do. I took a deep breath and go under as fast as I can. Whatever pulled her under let her go. I swam down about ten feet and pulled her up. Crap. She's already unconscious. I pull her onto the shore and panic. I've never performed CPR before but I've seen it on TV before so I go right to it.

I do compressions on her chest about 30 times. I pinch her nose, inhale and put my lips on hers. They're so cold. I exhale and do this one more time. I don't know how long it took. Maybe a minute, maybe twenty minutes. All I could think was that I couldn't lose Max; at least without telling her that I love her. I'd never forgive myself.

"Urrghh," Max said and coughed. She leaned over and coughed up some water. She groaned again. "What happened?"

"We're not really sure," Angel says. "One minute we were splashing each other and the next something grabbed you and pulled you under."

"Did anyone see what it was?" Max asked us all. Everyone shook their head. "Alright. Let's head back then."

We flew back in silence. When we got back to the house Max ran up to her room and locked the door. She's embarrassed that something overtook her like that and was upset that the kids were scared. I tried talking to her but she yelled at me to go away. Dr. M demanded we tell her what happened, so Angel and I did.

Max didn't come out for dinner either. Ella has to sleep in the living room because Max won't unlock the door.

I'm upset, too, but not for the same reasons Max is. How the hell did someone or something track us and get into the water without us noticing? I hope we aren't gaining another enemy without even doing anything. Then again, the Flock has a tendency to attract enemies everywhere. We might as well have a huge billboard right next to Dr. M's house advertising, "_In need of a nemesis? Want the thrill of a lifetime chasing down your adversaries? Call 1-800-FLOK-FOE for details! Hurry, before the rare rival species special dies out!"_

But seriously, there's no way that this happened by chance. You just can't have the words 'coincidence' and 'Flock' in the same sentence. You also can't have 'Gazzy' and 'taco night' in the same sentence either, but that's a whole different story.

Now that there's new threats, especially so close to where Max's family is, there's no doubt we can stay here for much longer unless our new enemy doesn't make a reappearance.

My mind drifts for a few minutes. I realize that I practically kissed her. I mean, our lips _were_ touching! Then I realize how childish this sounds. Like when seven year olds say they half-kiss someone if they share a drink. This is why I don't talk much. I hate making a fool of myself. Angel catches my thoughts all the time. She's pretty much the only one who knows how outgoing I am. Not even Max knows, because I'm always scared I'll mess up and say something stupid.

Someone knocks on the door. Gazzy and Iggy are in the backyard making more bombs. Nudge and Angel are watching a chick flick. Ella's at a sleepover. Dr. M doesn't just knock on my door unless she's letting me know we have dinner. And Total doesn't really like me. That leaves one person. Max.

"Come in."


End file.
